Granta 135 (Lead Title) by Sigrid Rausing

Granta 135 (Lead Title) Reviews

• 
  Barbara

  This was a top notch collection of short stories, photo essays, an excerpt or two from novels, and a few poems. It was 4.5 stars for me as not every story came through for me, but the choices were superb. There were several well established writers included such as Colm Toibin, Roddy Doyle and Emma Donoghue. For the most part the writers are new and emerging writers including Sara Baume, Lucy Caldwell, Donal Ryan, Belinda McKeon, Colin Barrett and Kevin Barry. I am in a book club that reads contemporary Irish fiction and increasingly we focus on newly published writers. This is not me bragging (a mortal sin in Irish circles), but only a few of the writers were new to me. However, these are writers that I am eager to read more of - William Wall, and Siobhán Mannion.
  Siobhán Mannion's story Through the Night is a story of a nurse in a tiny hospital and her kindness towards a Traveler couple who appear in the middle of the night with their seriously ill son, one of seven children. In a few pages, Mannion creates a portrayal of contemporary Ireland - a society where many families struggle, both parents working day and night, just to get by, and prejudice though less acceptable, still rears its ugly head. Lucy Caldwell's story of two teen girls in Belfast who are strongly attracted to one another, one the daughter of a fundamentalist Baptist father, is desperately sad. The final story by Roddy Doyle is a story of school bullying, endured for years.
  The photo essays The Travelers, Our Day Will Come : Loyalist, Republican; and My Last Day at Seventeen: Russell Heights (portraits of Irish teens) add tremendously to this collection. The author portraits by Eamonn Doyle are stunning. This is a volume to keep, if not for the writing, definitely for the photographs.
  
  
• 
  Marian

  3.5 or 4.0
  
  I have a backlog of Grantas and I'm sick and weary of the New Yorker, so I'm attacking the former. Plus, catching up may actually be doable!
  
  I enjoyed this latest issue a lot, with special favorites being the eminent Colm Toibin, Roddy Doyle, and Emma Donoghue, though hers is a novel excerpt so not fully satisfying. I'd not read her before, but I was impressed with this piece (set in 19th century Ireland, post-famine) so I look forward to reading more of her work. Also great were stories by Colin Barrett (he's broken out but this is my first read of his), Mary O'Donoghue, and Sally Rooney. If forced, I'd probably rate the Toibin and Mary O at the top. It floors me the fine gradations of filial feeling Toibin evokes in his protagonist, a German man whose difficult father is in his final twilight--which is one hackneyed subject, but Toibin has the stuff to make it new, blazingly new. Mary O'D is an Irish living a long time in Alabama and her story takes place there. What a voice, what fantabulous language.
  
  Most of the work here is fiction, with a few shorter poems and a nonfiction reflection on Cork by Kevin Barry. I enjoyed learning about the city, but I get the feeling this was more or less a toss-off, if a good one, written on solicitation.
  
  Lately I've realized that for each issue of Granta, there is an extensive "shadow" issue online only. I'm working my way through those pieces as well - lots of memoir and fiction. An essay by Sinead Gleeson called Blue Hills and Chalk Bones mowed me down.
  
  One gripe, though. I wanted some new Irish voices to represent the waves of immigration the country's experienced in the past couple of decades. Hoping they turn up soon in the lit mags and bookshops.
• 
  T P Kennedy

  A fabulous collection. This was so good I raced through it in two days. The good pieces are excellent - the Kevin Barry recollection of Cork and the Colm Toibin story stand out for me. Even the so so pieces are thought provoking. Like any random collection there are one or two misfires but far fewer than in the average Granta issue. The photo essays were fantastic. The only gap was poetry - there were a few pieces but considering the wealth of poetic talent in Ireland, this seemed like an oversight. I thoroughly recommend this anthology.
• 
  The.Faye

  I just discovered Granta - it's blown my tiny mind. What a wonderful idea!
  
  My particular favourites were:
  
  Through the Night by Siobhán Mannion
  Kevin Barry
  Belinda McKeon
  Mary O'Donoghue
  And
  Roddy Doyle
  
• 
  Monica

  Excellent read. Wonderful transportation to Ireland (and Berlin in one story).
• 
  Keith PJ Duggan

  Wonderful writing from all of the authors
• 
  Lavinia

  I won't even try to pick favourites. So many great pieces, so many new writers I want to read, so much love for Colm Tóibín, as always. For the small country that it is, Ireland has one of the best voices in literature. Ever.
  
  4.5*
• 
  A-ron

  This was a mixed bag. The writing was strong, but many of the stories didn’t connect. It started strong. Kevin Barry’s love letter to Cork was fantastic. And the two coming of age stories were excellent. This also featured some great photography.
• 
  Neil Kenealy

  This is Irish fiction from North and South, young and old,  women and men all alive and Irish and currently writing. It gives a great introduction to writers who haven't become household names here yet. But all are active in Ireland today so it's a great way to dip your toes into a writer's work. 
  
  First up is Kevin Barry  - good story memoir of the 90's and homage to Cork.
  
  Lucy Caldwell - Young teenage love from secondary school in Belfast. And not one mention of The Troubles how refreshing. 
  
  Out Leontia FLynn- kinda funny prose poem.
  
  Sally Rooney - Salary Man - this was before she became famous. Granta catching the wave again here. Or did they help make the wave? It's about a 20 year old woman and 38 year man old living together as housemates. They are friends but fancy the pants off each other. Man is afraid to get involved. Narrated by the 20 year old woman. Good story.
  
  The Visitor by Colin Barrett. Very threatening drug gang menace in a quiet sitting room insulated from the outside world until an ominous visitor comes.
  
  Sara Baume - Two cousins meet up at a wedding and remember childhood in grandfather's field. Playing with form and it works well.
  
  There are three photoessays and each tells a story. Tough boys and girls in a Cork housing estate. Young travellers on a halting site. Black and white photos of Belfast tell their story of two sectarian sides - immediately you try to work out in each picture whether it's Loyalist or Nationalist. Photography is bang on. This just feels like Ireland. It's neither John Hinde, Bord Failte or IDA. As the editor Sigrid Rausing says - "But Ireland is Ireland. It resists and relishes its own national images in equal measure." - spot on.
  
  John Connell. Birds of June. Tender story from a nursing home in early 90's Irish midlands. A different time before the boom among people that might not have even caught the boom. 
  
  Donal Ryan. All we Shall Know. Best story of the collection. A visceral story of a young dead marriage between man and woman. It's told by the woman who has just become pregnant and is weighing up her options which include suicide. Brilliant. Better than Low and quiet Sea which he published shortly after this. He should stick to being John McGahern in modern Ireland. That works. 
  
  Colm Toibin has a story about a dying man's visit to the zoo with his son and daughter-in-law as he nears the end of his life. Toibin is one of the elder statesmen of this collection and I can hear his voice telling this story. All his stories are told meticulously.
  
  Emma Donaghue piece from 19th century pishogue. Victorian gothic.  
  
  William Wall well told story of a tragedy in a small village by the coast. Could be any time any place. Deep bitter tragedy. Always cloudy in that village. 
  
  Siobhan Mannion small prose poem. 
  
  Mary o Donaghue - Kiddio at the Wedding. Set in the US so no connection with Ireland except the writer is Irish. Still Irish writing. And very good.
  
  Party party from Belinda McKeon. It seems to be mocking modern Ireland where values have been lost - it's probably South Dublin. There's a dystopian menace in the depiction of a party in a rich house where we are not really told who the hosts are. That lack of information makes the whole story uncomfortable with a touch of menace. 
  
  Stephen Sexton - The Butcher - small prose piece.
   
  Roddy Doyle dependable we know his voice and it's comforting. Doyle makes an old story of sexual abuse in secondary school sound new. He's still a master at his craft. You are there in that dangerous belittling secondary school as a first year pupil. 
  
  A huge number of authors could have been added to this. Lisa McInerney, Anne Carson, Anna Burns, Eimear McBride, Claire Keegan, Claire Kilroy, Anne Enright, John Boyne, Sebastian Barry are just a few that spring to mind. Hey Granta, you'll have to have another go at it before too long.
• 
  Matthew McCarthy

  A fine collection of contemporary Irish voices. Belinda McKeon’s wonderfully bizarre “Party, Party” and the magical prose-poetry of Sara Baume’s “Green, Mud, Gold” were my personal high points, two stories which offer untraditional, experimental visions of fictional urban and rural Ireland, respectively.
  
  I had high expectations for Colm Toibin’s piece, but was ultimately left disappointed. In “A Visit to the Zoo,” Toibin seems too concerned with hammering a theme into the framework of a story, rather than letting meaning emerge organically. This contrivance is far too bloodless for my taste, and the prose borders on self-indulgence. Regardless, Toibin’s talent is plainly obvious, even if this story missteps.
  
  “The Visitor” is another solid story from Colin Barrett and, in my opinion, betters “Anhedonia, Here I Come,” his most recent effort in The New Yorker. I look forward to his new collection, which I assume is forthcoming. (However, “The Ways,” with its amusing pathos, remains my favourite Barrett story, post-Young Skins.)
  
  Kevin Barry’s love letter to Cork, “The Raingod’s Green, Dark As Passion,” is a nice introduction to the collection, yet largely forgettable in the author’s excellent oeuvre, of which “Deer Season” (The New Yorker, Oct. 10) is a recent highlight.
  
  Stephen Sexton’s poem “The Butcher” is also quite good and well worth reading.
• 
  Karen Kao

  Open the covers of Granta's
  New Irish Writing and you’ll find a mossy dampness. You’ll hear the notes of Ireland, aye, though keyed to Cork, Belfast and County Clare. Poets, fiction writers and photographers work in their individual idiolect. The words that survive the car crash of generation, family, nation or non-nation, ethnicity, day job and lived experience. From the famous (Roddy Doyle) to (in 2016) up-and-coming (Stephen Sexton), these writers properly fear the power of idiolectic words.

  If cities are sexed, as Jan Morris believes, then Cork is a male place. Personified further, I could cast him as low-sized, disputatious and stoutly built, a hard-to-kn0ck-over type. […] He is given to surreal flights and to an antic humour and he is blessed with pleasingly musical speech patterns. […] He is fairly cool, usually quite relaxed, and head over heels in love with himself.

  
  
  To read the full review, please visit my website for
  Idiolect.
  
  
• 
  Philip Magnier

  Literally my favourite collection of Irish writing. In this instance they are all writers who are currently writing. There are no duds here, none.
  

  New to me when I read it at the time of publication -- 2016 -- were: Sally Rooney, Colin Barrett, Kevin Barry, Lucy Caldwell, Emma Donoghue. All those have achieved major or lesser fame since and kudos to them.
  

  My favourite story is Mr Salary by Sally Rooney and I still think it is the best thing she's done. Other standouts were Colin Barrett, Kevin Barry, and Lucy Caldwell. However, the standard is extraordinary and all pieces are totally absorbing.
  

  If you want to know about modern Ireland, read this book.
• 
  James

  Granta never fails to disappoint and this edition was no different. A solid collection of short stories from a range of Irish authors, alongside some great, gritty portrait photos taken by Eamonn Doyle.
  
  There’s an inherent sense of ‘Irishness’ that comes through these short stories in the same sense that Russian writing has a ‘Russian’ feel to it. Hard to describe, but it’s why I enjoyed these ones particularly.
  
  I also enjoyed the photoessays from Doug DuBois, Birte Kauffman, and Stephen Dock—not something I would usually see in the stuff I’m usually looking at or reading.
• 
  Eric

  Leave it to the Irish (my people!) to populate one of the Best issues of Granta I've read in quite a while. There's nary a literary slouch between the binding here, every tale is good to great.
  
  Of particular recommendation are:
  
  "The Raingod's Green", Kevin Barry - exquisite and wry description of Cork
  "Here We Are", Lucy Caldwell - an aching tale of longing
  "Green, Mud, Gold", Sara Baume - a mashup of prose and poetry, where all is not what it seems
  "All We Shall Know", Donal Ryan - in which we learn (or reminded?) of the Irish capacity for rage, eschewing quiet desperation
  "The Mountain Road", William Wall - the rage of small town life
  "Party, Party", Belinda McKeon - a slice of surrealism
  "Smile", Roddy Doyle - a minor masterpiece
  
  Also recommended, the poem "The Butcher" by Stephen Sexton
  
• 
  Jon FK

  Granta is a great literary journal that comes out quarterly. They usually have themed publications such as, "Betrayal", where they collect short stories, essays, poems, etc. From international writers.
  
  This volume focused on New Irish Writing and I feel as though by focusing on a region it suffered. This is still a great publication but I look forward to reading more non-regional themes.
• 
  TKO reads

  This is worth a read. Some great works. Mostly short stories. A poem or two. Some photography that will stick with you.
  
  I buy short stories, then think I prefer a book that flows or a series of memoirs from one author.
• 
  Dave

  It's just a DNA thing. The Irish have not stopped writing really, really well. Probably never will.
• 
  Patrick

  Some better than others, as usual...
• 
  Jacqui

  I really enjoyed Granta 135: New Irish Writing, though perhaps it was because I went into it without any preconceived ideas or notions of Irish writing. I particularly enjoyed the easy writing style and vivid characters created by Lucy Caldwell in ‘Here We Are’ and have therefore added some of her other works to my reading list. I also enjoyed ‘Mr Salary’ by Sally Rooney and ‘The Mountain Road’ by William Wall.
  
  Memorable Quotes
  
  The Raingod’s Green, Dark as Passion - Kevin Barry
  "The city cried out to be fictionalised."
  
  Here We Are - Lucy Caldwell
  "There are times in your life, or maybe just the one time, when you find yourself in the right place, the only place you could possibly be, and with the only person."
  
  "All love stories are the same story: the moment that, that moment when, the moment we."
  
  Mr Salary - Sally Rooney
  "My love for him felt so total and so annihilating that it was often impossible for me to see him clearly at all. If he left my line of sight for more than a few seconds I couldn't even remember what his face looked like."
  
  "Death was, of course the most ordinary thing that could happen, at some level I knew that. Still, I had stood there waiting to see the body in the river, ignoring the real living bodies all around me, as if death was more of a miracle that life was."
  
  A Visit to the Zoo - Colm Tóibín
  "...he would spend his last frugal years in the knowledge that truth existed but would remain, for the moment, enticingly beyond his grasp. His search for it would be merely an act of homage to the numinous , ineffable, the mysterious and ungraspable core of things."
• 
  Mary

  Some wonderful, poignant pieces in the latest Granta. I was lucky enough to go with a friend to a reading in Foyles where we heard extracts from three of the writers; Sarah Baume, Lucy Caldwell and Sally Rooney. Baume's in particular was so cleverly written, clearly with rhythm in mind, something I only picked up when hearing it being read aloud.
  My favourites from the collection were the stories by the three writers above. I also loved 'the birds of June' - the way the writer started with and returned to the image of the birds at the end. It reminded me a little of a technique used by Katherine Mansfield, while 'Kiddio at the Wedding' by Mary O'Donoghue deeply resonated with me - very moving and beautifully written.
• 
  Lawrence

  Good issue. Enjoyed the pieces by Kevin Barry, Sally Rooney, Colm Toibin, and Belinda McKeon. Really loved the eerie and menace of the landscape in the piece by Sara Baume. The excerpts from novels forthcoming by Donal Ryan and Roddy Doyle don't really work as stand-alone pieces, but they intrigued and encouraged reading of the larger works. This is an issue of Granta worth reading fully.
• 
  Karen

  Loved "The Mountain Wall" by William Wall and "Green, Mud, Gold" by Sara Baume. Also great ones from Colin Barrett, Kevin Barry, Lucy Caldwell, and Roddy Doyle. The photo essays by Stephen Dock, Doug Dubois, and Birte Kaufmann were incredible.
• 
  Nathan

  A return to form. I prefer Granta when it focuses on fiction, and there was a splendid handful of Irish voices in this issue. Shame that, despite Rausing's Editor's Note trying to cover for it, the photography selection seemed only to depict the seedier side of the Emerald Isle.
• 
  Chris

  Very good. I'm browsing bookstores for other titles by the authors in this collection.
• 
  Rachel

  I kept flipping to the back of this issue to see what else the authors' had written. I expect to make many updates to my "to read" list.
• 
  Sian

  This was my first experience reading Granta and I enjoyed reading material from various Irish authors. Colm Toibin's piece has to be my favourite in this issue.
• 
  Amy

  A really varied selection of (mostly) fiction. One of the good Grantas!
• 
  Rachel Kesal

  This is a great collection, and the portraits really good